Just what’s connecting your hardware together - and should you really care?

Connectivity divides us, drawing a line between those things which can talk to each other and those things which simply don’t know - or even don’t want to know - what everything else is trying to say. It sums up the most frustrating part of the smart home landscape: you simply can’t link everything together.

But why? A networking protocol is, after all, technically independent of hardware. It’s simply the set of rules and procedures used to exchange data between devices. If both ends of the connection are equipped with the same set of rules, they speak the same language. Simple. In some areas we have settled on particular protocols which make sense: computer networking, for example, tends to lean on the Open Systems Interconnection, which comprises TCP/IP, HTTPS, DNS et al; this standardisation is what make the internet possible. On top of this, we’ve generally settled on hardware for certain tasks. There aren’t multiple commercial wireless networking protocols fighting for your Mac’s attention, for example - we’re all be able to get online with some variant of 802.11.

Problem is, smart home rules are a lot more complicated than simply sending the right messages in the right format. If a smart home manufacturer decides to use a closed API, others won’t have access to relevant commands. If a manufacturer decides to use an unusual radio frequency, others won’t be able to lock in to it even if they know what to say. This is no coincidence - it’s often very deliberate.

The ideal smart home is one which isn’t overly concerned with which standards it’s using.

Frankly, the reason the smart home landscape is so fractured is that there’s a benefit to manufacturers to use one system or another. Perhaps one system suits the physical makeup of a product, the kind of connection required, or the price point. Maybe it’s a system the creators have expertise in, or are otherwise influenced to use by their cabal of like-minded companies. A system may be chosen simply because it makes connecting to it more difficult - there are obvious benefits to tying customers in to one family of products rather than allowing them to buy from a rival, however bone-headed that might be in the context of the smart home. That may not be the case forever - see ‘What’s next’ on p61 - but let’s break down the common systems and benefits on offer today.